


Sinners and Saints

by FanficsbyVe



Category: Bloodborne (Video Game)
Genre: Gen, Horror
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-22
Updated: 2015-09-22
Packaged: 2018-04-22 21:24:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,576
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4851035
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FanficsbyVe/pseuds/FanficsbyVe
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Arianna, Woman of Pleasure, and Sister Adella come to blows while waiting out the Scourge of Beasts at Oedon's Chapel. One-shot.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sinners and Saints

**Sinners and Saints.**

 

Howling.

Even within the thick walls of the Oedon Chapel it can be heard. All across Yharnam a cacophony of wails rise up to the pale moon, chilling anyone who hears to the bone. These are not the yowls of beasts. There is a strange hint of humanity to the agonized screams. A desperate prayer for help shattered by the guttural, inhuman screams of suffering. A thousand souls cry out tonight, losing their sanity or already lost in their madness. Their humanity is stripped away inch by inch as hair sprouts from their bodies, teeth sharpen into fangs and bones break and realign in unnatural ways. Their mangled bodies lose all sense and speech, until there is nothing left but lunacy and howling.

The howling… The endless, relentless howling.

“…Beware the frailty of men. Their wills are weak, minds young. The foul beasts will dangle nectar and lure the meek into the depths. Remain wary of the frailty of men. Their wills are weak, minds young. Were it not for fear, death would go unlamented…”

Sister Adella has stopped counting how many times she said this prayer. She has known it since she was a little girl. Since the words had been taught to her by her mother and, later, her mentor Vicar Amelia. She prays diligently to her Lord, the formless Great One Oedon. A Lord so powerful he does not need to take form. If any deity can deliver them from this nightmare, it’s Him. If any blood can heal those afflicted, it’s His. As such, she prays for Him to give her strength and to let His holy blood flow through her, so she can pass it on to the people of Yharnam and deliver them.

Even the wretched, lost sinners hiding in this chapel with her.

She looks at the medley of people, scattered across this large space. They are not good stock. She stares angrily at the perpetually irritated old lady who refuses her kind words and helping hands. At the judgmental old man who calls her a hypocrite and a fraud. At the miserable, deformed creature shrouded in red cloth. Yet most of all, her fury is reserved for the woman who happily talks to the pitiful dweller of this Chapel. 

She is an unusual denizen, yet one she has the misfortune of knowing. A blond woman in a red and yellow dress, its fabric rich but faded and worn. The one attribute that marks her as a scion of a fallen House. Even so, remorse or even shame seems to be beyond her, even in this holy place. Profane words regularly pass her lips as she talks to the creature. The things she says about the state of Yharnam, about the Healing Church and about its holy act of blood ministration are enough for her to seethe. She has suffered her words for days now, trapped between these walls. But no more…

Adella rises and approaches her with determined, measured steps. “You would do well to show some respect to the Healing Church and the Great Ones, especially in their sanctuary.”

The woman looks up. Her expression is unreadable and her tone is calm. Even so, Adella can hear the venom in it. “I am respectful to those who are capable of respect in return. Once the Church and their deities can summon a shred of it towards their followers, I will give them their due.”

This does nothing to ease the Sister’s fury. How dare this woman speak about her sacred institution this way? She has no right, especially not someone like her! She takes another step closer, her voice trembling with anger. 

“Do you not think that I do not know who you are? You are Arianna, Woman of Pleasure. You are a whore, a runaway Cainhurst spawn no less! You sell your disgusting vileblood to members of our Church for coin! You even gave it to the good Hunter that brought us here! You are a parasite, leeching off our establishment and corrupting it as you do!”

For a preciously short moment, Adella hopes that Arianna’s face will betray a hint of shock. She has just laid out her entire sordid past in front of her and her companion. The creature sure seems startled. It seems to have sunk back into its red cloak and stares back up at Arianna with trepidation. The whore, however, remains eerily calm. In fact, the accusation almost seems to bore her.

“I am indeed a prostitute. But what I do for a living does not seem any different to me than what you do.”

By now, Adella can feel her own face transform from crimson to deep purple. How dare she? How dare she suggest that they are similar in even the slightest of ways? She straightens her back and raises her voice some more.

“How dare you compare your philandering to what I do? I am a Blood Saint! I use my blood to heal people, to give them salvation. All I ask is a small compensation to sustain our church and their loyalty, so we may continue our good work! What I do is nothing like your foul deeds!”

The whore merely gives her a disdainful huff. “I do not see the difference. We both give our blood to others in exchange for something. The only difference is that at some point, the Healing Church deemed yours holy and mine damned.”

That is all she can bear. Rage overtakes every inch of her being and the fingers of her right hand curl into a fist. She involuntarily feels her hand raise and aim for her face. A sharp sting flies through the skin as it connects with the Arianna’s cheek, hard enough for the slap to echo all through the chapel. 

“You will not speak to me this way.”

Adella bites back a hiss at the pain the contact caused. The whore, on the other hand, does not make a sound. The Blood Saint can see how a large red mark spreads across the check she was struck on. Even so, her expression does not change. She does not even seem to flinch. If the blow even hurt her at all, Arianna does an astonishing job of not letting it show.

Her response, however, betrays an underlying sense of anger that easily rivals Adella’s. Still, rather than being delighted at drawing a reaction from her, the Saint can feel her blood chill. This anger in her voice is not all-consuming and easy to deflect as the ramblings of a shamed sinner. It is a calm, focused anger of woman in control of herself and that controlled wrath is now directed at her.

“I will speak to you befitting of the attitude you display. Yharnam is going to Hell in a hand basket. The beastly curse is spreading through the city, all the way up to the Cathedral, and the holy blood of the Church is not saving us. Yet here you are, praying and braying about your own righteousness rather than trying to help everyone here survive this nightmare.”

Adella is taken aback by this angry response, but still finds it in her to answer. “Do not presume to lecture me, Cainhurst woman. When it comes to what is wrong and right, someone from your family cannot presume to speak!”

A huff leaves the whore’s lips. “The Cainhurst clan… Do I look like I still give a rat’s arse about the Cainhurst clan? Frankly, I’d be sitting on red velvet cushions and sipping fine wine if I still did. No, let Annalise slurp on her blood dregs and hope for the Great Ones to bless her with some messiah. I speak from common sense and human compassion for my fellow Yharnamites. I do not care what you think of me, only that you aid from altruism rather than self-elevation. Else you are no different from a Vileblood but in name.”

Whatever retort were to come out of Adella’s mouth dies then and there. She gapes at Arianna with eyes wide and the holy blood rapidly seeps from her cheeks. The only thought that races through her minds is how she can know. How can this whore know?

She, as so many others in the Church do, takes the blood of their worshippers. There is nothing sweeter than consuming it, these droplets infused with the power of her Lord and a million of his worshippers. It makes her feel closer to the Formless One, almost as if she can hear Him speak to her directly. How wrong can it truly be, to be so close to one’s god? Even if it was warned against by small-minded men; Master Willem and Master Laurence alike? 

Even so, that is a small comfort. Her sin, even if it is only that in name, is now exposed. The whore knows and if she wishes, everyone in this chapel will too. Adella finds herself resenting her even more when she does not bother to do so. Instead, Arianna only looks at her with a tired anger, almost as if she feels ashamed to have even partaken in this conversation. 

“Are we done?”

Adella refuses to even confirm her question. Even when her pride is snapped, it is still present. She knows when she has lost a fight, but she will not bow to a lowlife woman even in this dire situation. As such, she settles for skulking back to her corner, muttering a last warning on behalf of the Healing Church under her breath.

“The Great Ones will punish you for your dissent…” 

A great many things rouse Adella from the fitful sleep she did not even realize she had succumbed to. The howling outside seems to have grown even louder and noises within the Chapel itself reverberate off the ancient stones. Noises that weren’t there before.

She stiffens. Have the beasts found a way into the building? It can’t be! The wretched little dweller said the incense would ward them off. Was the creature lying? 

She rises to her feet, trembling, but her eyes find no beasts. Even so, a dark presence seems to be over her. Whispers seem to flit through her head, speaking in foreign tongues that cause her stomach to churn. She swears she can hear warnings in the dark, inhuman words. They murmur, taunt and mock in that awful, strange language and she could swear that black, icy fingers dig into the deepest recesses of her mind. Horrific images flash across their eyes, subjecting her to horror not even the most frenzied nightmare can conjure. She nearly bites her tongue in the effort to stave off these horrors. What of the others?

She looks around the Chapel. Her fellow refugees seem to be in the throes of something awful. The old lady is incessantly babbling to herself. The old man is quietly seething. The little dweller is hiding his face in his hands, repeating over and over how Yharnam is doomed. She can feel her teeth chatter, but their off-putting behavior is nothing compared to the whore’s.

Arianna is slumped over on her usual chair. Pained moans and cries slip from her mouth and sweat drips all over her face, causing her long blond hair to stick to her skin. Her hands clutch her stomach, fingers digging into the velvet of her dress and the pale skin underneath. 

Overtaken by morbid curiosity, Adella approaches. The whore seemed to be in agony, clawing at something that is apparently inside her. For a moment, the Blood Saint wonders if she hears the same hears the same whispers that she does or sees the same gruesome visions as she does. A closer look, however, reveals something far more disconcerting. 

An abnormally swollen belly and water running down her legs.

A shudder runs through her. Arianna is pregnant? The lingering trace of logic in her head says it shouldn’t surprise her. After all, the woman is a whore. Even if she mostly deals in blood peddling, it would make sense that she also spread her legs for someone. It is just an unwanted bastard inside this woman, it has to be.

Yet the voices keep nagging, whispering their foul suggestions. They somehow seem to become more intelligible as time drags on, clunking into words she can actually understand. They brutally tear at her sense of reason, opening her mind to that which she does not want to acknowledge or consider. The bellies of pregnant women do not grow so fast in one night. Not when the child’s father is human. This is something else, something she can barely push herself to believe.

The Great Ones have blessed her with child.

Adella is now shaking on her legs. The Great Ones are here. Her Lord, Oedon the Formless One, is here. He has descended on this earth, like it was foretold. Yet of all those he could bless with Immaculate Conception of his blessed prodigy, he chose Arianna. Arianna, Woman of Pleasure. Fallen one of the Cainhurst Vilebloods. A whore, who cannot even deign to honor the Healing Church.

She falls to her knees, voice breaking as she screams to the heavens. “Why her, Great Lord? Why her? Why this insolent whore who cares nothing for Your worship? Why am I passed over? Have I not served You well? Have I not been faithful?”

She screams. She yells and cries until her voice gets out. Lord Oedon, however, does not answer. All she hears are her own pleas echoing off the Chapel’s ceiling and the ever persistent howling outside. They now join the harmony of the insidious whispers inside her mind, drowning out the silence with secrets and tales of a scope she cannot comprehend or even wants to.

Tears run down her face as she shakily gets up and limps back to her old spot in the corner. She practically collapses on the stone, leaning forward. She fights the urge to rock herself back and forward, unable to find comfort in the face of her present reality. Silence seems far away and in her desperation, she does what she has always found comfort in. She prays.

“Oh merciful God, help me... In the name of the Healing Church, cleanse us of this horrible nightmare…”

Of course, there is once again no retort to her prayers. Formless Oedon does not speak or alleviate her suffering. He was only there to facilitate a miracle that shattered everything she knew and believed in; contradicting everything she thought to be his will. All proof of his presence remains with the whore, howling in pain as she is about to birth his blessed child. Hers join the chorus outside, forming one horrid psalm to honor an indiscernible eldritch truth that no sane human could understand.

Soon, Adella’s prayers morph into demented laughter and she can do nothing but giggle endlessly as she stares at her own fingers clutched together. There is nothing than can be done now. The Hunters will not save them this time. Not her or the people here, not even the Healing Church or this city. All she can do now is wait for the end and hope it comes quickly, so she doesn’t have long to contemplate on the bitter fact that the wretched Chapel Dweller is right.

Yharnam is doomed. Doomed in a ruin of blood, teeth and endless howling.


End file.
